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The Great Hall of the People, reflected in a camera lens, before the closing of the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing on November 14, 2012.

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Writers: Heroes in China?

A Sinica Podcast

by Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn, David Moser, Ian Johnson

June 8, 2015

The Sinica Podcast is a weekly discussion of current affairs in China hosted by long-time Beijing residents Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn. Launched in April 2010, the podcast is recorded in various locations in China, the USA, and around the world.

David Moser holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan, with a major in Chinese Linguistics and Philosophy. He was a visiting scholar at Peking University in 1987...

If you happen to live in the anglophone world and aren’t closely tied to China by blood or professional ties, chances are that what you believe to be true about this country is heavily influenced by the opinions of perhaps one hundred other people, the reporters who cover China for the world’s leading media outlets and the writers who build a narrative to encompass it beyond the frenetic drumbeat of current affairs.

This week, Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn, and David Moser are joined by accomplished writer Ian Johnson to talk about this phenomenon at first generally, but then specifically with regards to a piece Ian recently authored in the New York Review of Books called “An American Hero in China,” a look into the way China has embraced Peter Hessler and his writings on the country. We try to make sense of how exactly reporting is done here, what sorts of editorial decisions are made that affect coverage, and how authors struggle to make China intelligible to the outside world.

One night in September, three hundred people crowded into the basement auditorium of an office tower in Beijing to hear a discussion between two of China’s most popular writers. One was Liu Yu, a thirty-eight-year-old political scientist and blogger...